All posts tagged business

Michael Dell has announced at Dell World Keynote that it is enjoying No. 1 position in the market share for having servers in Asia and North America. It is having no. one spot worldwide with 64,000 servers.In this announcement, Dell has not cited the source of this claim. Also, no public statements have been given about this and that is the reason we have consulted IDC analyst, Matt Eastwood to find out truth behind the claim. Eastwood has left his reply on Twitter as: “Dell is at #2 in the server units and #2 in x86 server’s revenue. Overall it is at #3 in server rev (pesky mainframes).”Dell is achieving steady sales in the server market. It is the only company who has encountered increasing numbers of share in third quarter analysis of market, yet it has shown overall decline in sales. Eastwood in his reply has further said that it is IBM who still gets sales for its big boxes.

Dell has counted the market share by the shipment and not by the market revenue. When we measure the market share in terms of revenue, IBM is at number one spot with total $3.5 billion, HP is one number second with $3.3 billion and Dell is on number three with $2.1 billion server sales.

Servers are packed in the racks and every few days, technicians walk in to pick out the dead one from the heart of server room. Servers are cheap commodity and they bestow little margins on sales to Dell and also to other vendors.

This time the Dell’s aim was to sell solution rather than servers and that is why they have called limited gathering in Austin, Dell World. Dell has recently revealed that its public and private cloud platforms will be developed on OpenStack. Dell has released its technical preview of private cloud- Dell Cloud Dedicated with OpenStack, on December 12, 2012.

Zynga has filled a document with new terms and conditions related to Facebook. Facebook and Zynga are now developing some distant and flexible relationships, because Facebook has started treating Zynga like other developers.From now onwards, all the standards of Zynga game pages that employs Facebook data, will be administered by Facebook’s standards terms of the service. In simpler words, new-ish Zynga.com will no more be able to employ Facebook credits and Facebook ad units. On the other hand, Zynga will be allowed to use the Facebook data and email ids for the promotion of non-Facebook games, in regards with standard terms.The document signed has revealed that Zynga’s social game launches will not be supervised by Facebook, though Zynga will have gigantic presence on the Facebook. Zynga has further said their games will be available on other social portals or over the property of Zynga.

Back in 2010, Facebook and Zynga have signed five year deal, yet Zynga is trying to reduce its dependency on Facebook. They have introduced Zynga.com for the launches of their games and it is also seen that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook has reduced the payments by 20 percent to the Zynga, in one year’s time period. With so many clauses and amendments done by Zynga, they have also stated that from 31st March 2013, Facebook will going to launch their own games. But, Facebook said that they have no such intentions.

Zynga’s chief revenue officer, Mr. Barry Cottle has given a statement that Zynga is aiming to connect the world with the games. For this reason, Zynga is trying to build strong relationships with their customers across Zynga.com and Facebook. This relationship will be established via web, mobile devices and even tablets. Moreover he added that these amendments in clauses are made to make sure the strong and successful partnership with Facebook. This will also ensure flexibility and the universal availability of our services and products.

Federal grand jury indictment alleges that SAC maintained elite group that has traded on insider information since 1999

A federal grand jury has indicted SAC Capital, the embattled hedge fund that has been pursued by financial authorities for years, for insider trading after regulators failed to charge its powerful founder, Steven A Cohen.

The US attorney who brought the charges, Preet Bharara, also hit the firm with civil money-laundering charges that would require the firm to forfeit potentially billions of dollars in assets.

A 41-page indictment alleges that SAC, founded in 1992, maintained an elite group that has traded on insider information since 1999.

SAC is also alleged to have hired portfolio managers specifically for their insider contact in the industries in which they traded, and failed to raise red flags when insider information was suggested as the basis for a trade.

The indictment marks the culmination of a six-year investigation by Bharara. The government pursued an investigation against Cohen but apparently dropped its attempt to bring charges last month.

“SAC became, over time, a veritable magnet for market cheaters,” Bharara said at a news conference in Manhattan. “That’s why the institution, and not individuals, stand accused of insider trading.” He said that the charges were “a predictable product of pervasive institutional failure”, and added: “A company reaps what it sows. SAC seeded itself with corrupt traders.”

Cohen was not mentioned by name in the indictment but referred to obliquely as “the SAC owner” and an “individual residing in Greenwich, Connecticut.”

“The SAC owner failed to question candidates who implied that their ‘edge’ was based on sources of inside information,” the indictment says. Later, it notes: “The SAC owner fostered a culture that focused on not discussing inside information too openly, rather than not seeking or trading on such information in the first place.”

The government’s case centers on SAC’s culture. It alleges that employees at SAC “engaged in a pattern of obtaining inside information from dozens of publicly-traded companies across multiple industry sectors. Employees …traded on inside information themselves and, at times, recommended trades to the SAC owner based on inside information.”

Under US securities laws, fund managers may only trade on company information that has been publicly disclosed.

The indictment mentions several other SAC employees as well as employees of affiliate investment firms. One portfolio manager for Cohen-controlled Sigma Capital, Wes Wang, is cited in connection with insider trading in eight technology stocks including Taiwan Semiconductor, Cisco, and eBay. In 2012, Wang pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

Other alleged insider trading by SAC Capital mentioned in the indictment includes some of the biggest North American companies, such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, BlackBerry maker RIM, and Yahoo.

SAC denied the allegations. It said in a statement: “SAC has never encouraged, promoted or tolerated insider trading and takes its compliance and management obligations seriously. The handful of men who admit they broke the law does not reflect the honesty, integrity and character of the thousands of men and women who have worked at SAC over the past 21 years. SAC will continue to operate as we work through these matters.”

The chief target of the US attorney’s legal strategy, according to experts, is to foil Cohen himself by attacking his deputies and the trading culture of the firm he created. Cohen controls 60% of the money in SAC Capital and has a net worth of roughly $9bn, according to Bloomberg.

The indictment holds that SAC’s trading culture was heavily centralized, with dozens of portfolio managers answering directly to Cohen without knowledge of what their peers in the firm were doing.

Cohen, until his legal troubles, was a towering figure on Wall Street, a billionaire unknown to much of the public but famous in the finance community for his enviable investment profits and casual style. While maintaining an intense work regimen – working at over seven computer screens in his office – he was habitually seen around the firm’s Connecticut trading floor in a blue fleece vest that became almost iconic.

He was known for quirks such as his disdain of ringing phones, which created a silent trading floor, and maintaining the firm’s temperature at a breezy 69F so traders would not be too comfortable.

For investors, he held a notable mystique: SAC was so sought-after by clients that they paid the firm a fee of 3% of the money under management and allowed the firm to take up to 50% of their investment profits, according to the indictment.

SAC seemed to have a green thumb for stocks, watching them gain up to 10% in value in a single day after buying shares, and up to 15% in a month, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis in March.

The swirl of legal issues around insider trading have already temporarily claimed the careers of two of Cohen’s top lieutenants, Michael Steinberg and Mathew Martoma, both of whom were arrested at their homes and subsequently indicted. The government’s case against Martoma accuses him of making a profit of $276m by trading on nonpublic information related to healthcare companies Wyeth and Elan.

Martoma has maintained his innocence. His trial is set for November.

The indictment is the latest in a series of investigations of SAC by regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as federal prosecutors.

Most recently, last week the SEC filed civil administrative charges against Cohen, arguing that he “failed reasonably to supervise” Steinberg and Martoma.

In response to the SEC’s charges, Cohen’s lawyers argued, in 46-page white paper to staff, that he was too busy to read his email, and estimated he opened only 11% of his messages. As a result, they held, he could not have acted on insider tips contained in those emails.

Previously, SAC and its affiliates paid a $617.5m fine to settle SEC charges on insider trading, even though a judge grew irritated that the firm would be able to pay money to absolve itself of charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

Former IMF chief charged with aggravated pimping in connection with alleged prostitution ring at Carlton hotel in Lille

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, is to go on trial on charges of pimping in connection with an alleged prostitution ring at a luxury hotel in the northern French city of Lille

Magistrates in France decided on Fridayto press ahead with charging the former Socialist minister in spite of calls by the state prosecutor for the case to be dropped.

Strauss-Kahn, 64, a former French presidential candidate, has admitted attending the “libertine” parties and having sex with a number of women. However, he has always insisted he did not know that some of them were prostitutes.

The case, known as the Carlton affair after the luxury hotel where the orgies were said to have taken place, centres around allegations that businessmen and police officials in Lille operated a vice ring supplying women for sex parties.

This affair, which came to light in late 2011, is the last of a series of inquiries into Strauss-Kahn since his arrest in New York in May 2011 where he was accused of trying to rape a hotel maid.

The charges in the US were eventually dropped because of doubts over maid Nafissatou Diallo’s credibility after she was found to have lied on her immigration claim, but Strauss-Kahn was later forced to pay her substantial damages reported to be in the region of $6m( 3.9m).

Two subsequent cases against the former French finance minister have also been dropped. An allegation of sexual assault against writer Tristane Banon in Paris in 2003 did not result in criminal charges because it had passed the legal time limit. In October last year, French prosecutors decided to drop an inquiry into allegations of gang rape at a hotel in Washington after one of the women involved who had made the claim retracted her evidence.

The state prosecutor had recommended that the Carlton affair charges against Strauss-Kahn be dropped on the grounds of a lack of evidence.

Magistrates decided otherwise; they put aside a charge of “aggravated pimping as part of an organised gang”, but maintained the lesser charge of “aggravated pimping as part of a group”. He is facing trial along with 12 other defendants.

In France pimping can cover a wide range of crimes including aiding or encouraging prostitution. A trial is expected to take place next year. If convicted, Strauss-Kahn could face up to 10 years in prison and a 1.5m ( 860,000) fine.

The former IMF chief has vehemently denied all allegations against him and described them as “dangerous and malicious insinuations and extrapolations”.

“It will all come out publicly before the tribunal and everyone will realise that there is nothing in this case,” Henri Leclerc, one of Strauss Kahn’s lawyers said on Friday.

Leclerc said the legal team was “under no illusions” about the “relentlessness shown by the investigating magistrates” and claimed Strauss-Kahn was being targeted because of his high profile.

“This decision is based on an ideological and moral analysis, but certainly not on any legal grounds. We’re sending someone to court for nothing,” said the lawyer.

After an earlier hearing into the Carlton affair, Leclerc told the French radio station Europe 1 that Strauss-Kahn could not have known whether the women at the parties were prostitutes.

“As you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,” Leclerc said.

Strauss-Kahn had been a frontrunner as the Socialist party’s candidate to become French president in last year’s election before his arrest in New York. He was forced to resign from his job as IMF chief and his third wife Anne Sinclair, a wealthy heiress and former television presenter, divorced him.

At the Cannes film festival in May, Strauss-Kahn was pictured with a new girlfriend, Moroccan-born Myriam L’Aouffir, 45, who works in the internet and social media department at France Television.

Dell 14 Business Laptop Carrying Case 0XKYW7

This professional laptop carrying case from Dell is designed to fit laptops with screen sizes up to 14 . It contains accessory storage features such as a separate mesh compartment, a large separate section for files/documents, two smaller pockets for quick access to smaller items, and a large zippered front pocket.

BlackBerry has been in the spotlight a lot over the past few months. The company announced that it was hard at work creating a revolutionary new operation system, BB10. Research in Motion changed its name to just “BlackBerry.” Blackberry Messenger, the chat client for BlackBerry users was made into an iOS app. The company even launched a new device management service that would allow bosses to keep track of iPhones and iPads, too.

After all of these changes, new products, and reinventions, today the company announced that it is looking for a buyer and is exploring “strategic alternatives.”

According to TechCrunch, the Canada-based company halted trading on its shares and announced that it is looking into different possibilities to keep the company going, including a possible sale or joint venture or other partnership.

“During the past year, management and the Board have been focused on launching the BlackBerry 10 platform and BES 10, establishing a strong financial position, and evaluating the best approach to delivering long-term value for customers and shareholders,” said Timothy Dattels, Chairman of BlackBerry’s Special Committee of the Board. “Given the importance and strength of our technology, and the evolving industry and competitive landscape, we believe that now is the right time to explore strategic alternatives.”

Even after all of the big changes and software launches, BlackBerry is far from the top of the tech heap. Shortly after BB10 launched, the company’s stock dropped by nearly 30 percent.

BlackBerry is not throwing in the towel at this time. They are simply looking into their options. Everything may just stay the same. Blackberry included the following statement in their press announcement:

“There can be no assurance that this exploration process will result in any transaction. The Company does not currently intend to disclose further developments with respect to this process, unless and until its Board of Directors approves a specific transaction or otherwise concludes the review of strategic alternatives.”

There are many ways to encounter the success of mobile platform, but if you are intending to measure the success by numbers of app downloads metric, than do not worry, ABI Research has already did it for you. According to ABI, the Android will win the race in 2013 with 58% of smartphone app downloads. Apple will be lagging behind with just 33% of downloads. By the inclusion of tablet app downloads, the figures will drastically change.ABI predicted that in 2013, almost 56 billion times app will download and majority of these apps will be of iOS and Android, it is showing that in smartphone market these two are enjoying duopoly. It is said earlier this year by ABI that Android will be having 57% share and iOS will be enjoying 21% share in the global smartphone market. Jointly, these two players were enjoying 92% of the chunk in the market in 2012 Q4 and this is now down to 72% and indicating that some second player is having chance to show its performance.

However, it is clear that Android is having bigger piece of share this year and it is expected to grow further. It will be too early to predict the figures knowing that China is urging in adoption of smartphones. For instance this February, China has passed US in order to become the world’s largest iOS and Android smartphone and tablet users. Apple is certainly not ignoring China and Tim Cook has already announced that China is an important market for Apple. There are many options for Chinese customers to buy, and Apple has also offered them option to buy Apple devices on credit terms.

No doubt, ABI prediction about Android app download is correct, because Android is having low cost smartphone market and having more numbers of customers. But, Apple in terms of making revenue formation from the app is still the leader, as their developers know exactly how to monetise their paid apps, in app purchases, virtual goods and upgrades.

ABI also declared that in terms of tablet app downloads, iOS is leading and this is another reason for shakiness of Android. This year it is predicated that almost 14 billion tablet apps will be downloaded and 75% of them will be accounted for iPad and 17% will be accounted for Android (excluding Kindle Fire). Amazon will be having 4% and Windows Tablets will be having 2% share, as claimed by the firm.

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The share margin in Tablet market between iPad and Android is narrowing at a faster pace than predicted.

Android and iPad market share is shrinking much faster than it was predicted